March 6, 2024 • 45 mins
62-year-old retired Highway Maintainer with the Illinois Department of Transportation, Bill “Risky” Reaska, and his wife, April, have enjoyed hunting various species of mushrooms near their home in the Illinois River Valley area for a number of years. The couple also enjoys preserving the mushrooms by dehydrating and packaging them for storage.
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Outdoors People is broadcast live Wednesdays at 6PM ET.
Outdoors People TV Show is viewed on Talk 4 TV (www.talk4tv.com).
Outdoors People Radio Show is broadcast on W4CY Radio (www.w4cy.com) part of Talk 4 Radio (www.talk4radio.com) on the Talk 4 Media Network (www.talk4media.com).
Outdoors People Podcast is also available on Talk 4 Podcasting (www.talk4podcasting.com), iHeartRadio, Amazon Music, Pandora, Spotify, Audible, and over 100 other podcast outlets.
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(00:00):
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(00:21):
Radio. Welcome to outdoors People withMe. Cw Getz and her Maya mar
Zaki. Good evening. It's Wednesday, March sixth, twenty twenty four.
(00:54):
I'll tell you what. We hada fun date that a Maya is up
here from Brazil. Yeah. Wedid a little tour of a whiskey was
it. I wouldn't call it awhiskey fact. What do you call it?
Not a factory a versus distillery distillery? Yes, yeah, it sounds
better because they do like four differenttypes of acolic. Yeah, and I
think they're going to be making kshasasoon. Yeah. I love it.
(01:21):
But it was really it was quitean education a little tour and yeah,
and the gentleman that was there thatowns the place, we did a little
video footage and I think we maymake an episode out of that. So
I think it's going to be it'llbe fun, It'll be a lot of
fun. Yeah, we had agood day today here Illinois. It was
about fifty degrees and you know what, let's see what that says. I'm
(01:42):
going to reach my handy little fiftydegrees. That would be ten degrees celsius
up here in Illinois, so notas quite as warm as it was last
few days. And I think theweather forecast when we're we're going to be
Maya and I are going to bea Canu Copia this weekend. We're going
to be moderators for Cliff Jacobson andKevin Callon and bab O'Hara and there's one
(02:07):
other gentleman and I don't remember whothe other one is, please forgive me,
but we're gonna do a little livebroadcasting from the show as well.
But it's I think it's supposed tobe in the fifties up there too.
I think it's about the same temperatureas we're getting right now, so not
too bad. Usually it's cold upthere, really cold. This is going
to be a switch. It iscold for me because it's like Brazilian winter
(02:30):
or wars. But it feels good. It's not that cold. It's really
nice and you so I'm very gladwith that weather. Yeah, you surprised
me. You came with a jacketfrom Brazil, and I was like,
wow, I didn't think anybody inBrazil in the jackets. Well, I
buff in Canada when I was leavingthere. Right, Oh, that's right,
that's right. So that's kind oflike what do you have a hand
(02:51):
well, not handry now leftover clothing. I like that. What do we
got here? One seventy four degreesin South Florida. Oh see, that's
perfect. And that's what kind ofwhat we were having the last few days.
It was very nice weather. That'svery cool. It's very good.
So cold so cold you should youshould live in Brazil. It's very if
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you, yeah, because like whenit gets to be I don't know,
eighty, it's cold in Brazil,right so oh yeah, like, well
I made that up, but it'slike anything less than ninety. You guys
are freeze of man. Yes,I love it. Well, we got
a little special treat tonight Tonight's guests. I used to work with this gentleman,
and I will give him a formalintroduction, just like I do every
(03:36):
other guest, but this was thiswas my buddy at I DOT and we
made it through some very difficult snowstormsand together and uh, you know,
provide moral support, coffee, whateverit took. And I really enjoyed my
time with him. And I said, let's get you on the show.
(03:58):
Let's talk about what you really reallyknowing. He knows mushrooms. Tonight's episode
Hunting and Gathering. Fun guy witha fun guy, And nothing could be
more true. So sixty two yearold retired highway maintainer with the Illinois Department
of Transportation, Bill Risky ri Escaand his wife April have enjoyed hunting various
(04:21):
species of mushrooms near their home inthe Illinois River Valley area for a number
of years. The couple also enjoyspreserving the mushrooms by dehydrating and packaging them
for storage. And with that,welcome to the show, Bill, Hi,
thanks for having me. Well,you're welcome, and thank you for
(04:41):
being here. And so we're gonnacall you risky because that's how I know
you at work and you can sharewith them how you know me what they
used to coming work. I'm goingto refer to you as ringo because that's
what we called you at work.The PG stuff they called me. Yeah,
you were a drummer, and iseverybody called your ringo? Yeah,
and that kind of turned it toring ring ring, ringo ring. You
(05:03):
know, that's something that I thinkthe listeners from the Campy Show and Outdoors
people don't know you were a drummerA good one. Really well, thank
you. Wow, I'm flattered.I'm flattered. You know. It's funny
because we talked about you coming onthe show here for months and months and
(05:24):
he said yeah, no, no, no, no, and finally I
talked to it. Yeah. Ididn't even have to pay him, you
know, so that was good.I really like it to get paid.
Deal's a deal now, yeah,yeah, yeah, where's my agent?
He just yeah, he just didn't. Yeah, he's on strike with the
(05:46):
rest of the world. Actually,all right, one, I'll tell you
what. We've got three little videoclips. Let's have you play those back
to back and then we'll get somequestions. We'll have Bill Fields some questions,
how's that I think those videos are? It says there, what happened?
(06:09):
We got? Those are no.So here's my taki mushroom that I
picked last week, the one thatyou seen in the kitchen that we were
already processing. And this is theoak that for many years I took many
mushrooms from. Unfortunately, the mushroomis a parasite of the oak and it
(06:30):
eventually will kill the tree. However, the mushrooms will grow years after the
tree is gone where the stump was, so you'll still be able to harvest
and forage tree mushrooms long after thetrees passed away. This one just fell
this past year. I picked themoff this last year. I asked the
homeowner. We're on private property now, and I did ask the homeowner if
I could pick them, and Iactually shared them with him, and he
(06:54):
said in the future that I couldcome. And I picked this one this
year, and there was also oneon the other side. But ultimately they're
found at the base of oak trees. This is a great old white oak
and many years produced them. Butlike I said, it's a parasite and
eventually will kill the tree. Inthis case, it killed it and it
fell over. Beautiful. Look atall those brackets. Pretty there's one right
(07:28):
there. Yeah, so we're we'relooking for oak trees because that's where the
Koreans grow under and unfortunately, likeBill had said earlier, they will infect
an oak and it will die.So we have this oak right here that
(07:49):
has this really pretty normally there.I haven't seen too many that are all
this yellow like this, but it'sreally nice, moist, and it looks
like it's already this oak here isalready dying. But the matakis are really
good for their anti inflammation. They'rea great immune booster. They've done tons
(08:13):
of studies on them about all thehealth benefits. So basically what you want
to do, and I usually don'tcarry a knife with me, I just
kind of will go and twist themand pop it right off of there and
see so you can see all thedirt and some of the leaves that's grown
(08:35):
in there. And like Bill said, we'll just take this home and soak
it for a couple of days,and uh, like a sponge. Yeah,
they're they're they're they're like a sponge, they really are. But they
get the name from they're called matakis. But They're also called dancing mushrooms because
when the Japanese used to find them, they would dance because they were so
(08:58):
excited, and obviously they knew allthe health benefits too. So we'll check
this tree again next year. Andthere's a little piece there that fell off,
a little piece right there. Butbasically this is what hen of the
woods, or locally they'll call korenssheep's head, sheep's head, rams head,
(09:20):
rams head. This is a kingof mushrooms. It's the it's the
tastiest mushroom there probably is. That'ssubjective, of course, but they grow
in the fall between end of AugustSeptember October is when we find most of
ours. Some of them are darkerthan that, some are black and brown.
There isn't any really nasty mushroom that'sa look alike this time of year.
(09:43):
It's mostly if you find one likethis or or a darker color.
Uh, there's not a there's nota one that's that's similar that's that would
be toxic to you. So thiswould be the king of the mushrooms,
probably the best tasting other than themorals. So and that we look for
these morals in the spring and welook for the matakis or crens in the
fall, and we usually bring apair of binoculars with us. I have
(10:05):
a monocular that I use, sothat way, if you can see the
bottom of an oak far away,you can look and see if it has
any you can actually spot them prettyfar away sometimes. And that way you're
not walking up and down ditches thatare pretty like. We have some big
ravines here. We didn't ask theproperty owner for this. We own this
property, so this is ours.And once you find a tree like this,
(10:26):
this tree will produce mushrooms for yearseven after it dies. And there's
another one down there we know of, so it's foraging here is like farming
with these mushrooms. You don't haveto hunt them so much as if you
know where your tree's at and youmark your trees and you can go back
to them each year, you cando really well in a really short time.
(10:46):
Yeah. So you can slice theseup kind of like a steak.
You can fry them. You canput just butter on them and fry them
up. I dehydrate and then Ilike to put them in capsules to for
myself. But you can put someegg and milk and do it like that,
put them in soups, dehydrate themto put in soups for later,
(11:09):
mushroom soup and stuff like that.But they are delicious and very very beneficial
for your health. And the treeearlier on in the video that they get
as big as forty pounds. Ifound a record thirty six pounder on that
same oak that we showed earlier thathad passed away. It was thirty six
pounds we weighed, and I haveheard of a forty pound years ago.
(11:31):
So when you get in the thirtysix forty pound, that's about as big
as they get. That's a prettygood sized mushroom. Doesn't take very many
to get a lot of food,and you can store them too over winter
in the Yeah, I'll dehydrate themand I've got the little oxygen packets or
whatever those are called, and putthose in with them, and yeah,
(11:54):
they stay good for a long timeor you can freeze them too. So
that was pretty cool. I thankyou for doing this. Yeah, if
we had a third video, andapparently it didn't make it, I don't
know, and I thought I sentit to one, but apparently it's not
there. So I apologize for that. But that video, the one that
we don't have, was you droppingthe mushroom into a bucket of water and
(12:20):
you do that for was it forthe bugs to kind of extract the bugs?
Is that how it works? Yeah, you've seen in April there pulled
the mushroom off the ground. Therewas all kinds of leaves and sticks and
debris stuck to it. Well,there's also insects. There's ants and stink
bugs, you know, just allkinds of insects in them, and spiders.
(12:41):
So if you put them in waterovernight, and sometimes we just lead
them in there for two you canleave them in the water for a pretty
long time. Sometimes you find themdried out. The older ones are kind
of drying, and you put themin the water not only to get rid
of the bugs and the sticks andthe debris that comes floating to the top,
but you also hydrate the mushroom becausesome of them, when they're like
(13:01):
almost at the edge where they're driedout, the water helps them rehydrate and
they just they pick it up likea sponge, so almost like they're fresh
again. Let me ask you howmany how many different species of mushrooms are
there in the world? In theworld. There's probably around numbers fourteen thousand
or so that are named. However, there's a lot of mushrooms that the
(13:24):
mycologists, and by the way,I'm not a mycologist. They know it
more about mushrooms. There's a lotthat haven't been found yet or haven't been
discovered. There's new mushrooms being discoveredall the time. So you go out
there, you might find something thatyou can't find in a field book.
And then if that's the case,you might want to let your local micologist
or a field and soil and watertownship find know about it. So interesting
(13:48):
it might be something that you canname after he So I don't know the
ringo. I think I'd like tocall myself a micologist like that, Mike,
what is my collegists? What isthat? Those are people that study
mushrooms. Those are the fun guyguys. I'm just a fun guy.
I'm a fun guy. But thoseare fun guy guys. Guy. I
(14:09):
love that they study them. Anduh, they were the ones that write
a lot of these field books thatwe use, you know, to find
out to make sure we got onethat is poisonous or could be bad for
her health. So yeah, mycologists for the guys a study him.
Yes, that's fancy. And uh, I wish I could name a musher
(14:30):
on under my name. So I'mgoing to hunt one in Brazil, try
to find one, but try tofind when that's not in the book.
And I think you might have awinner. She could call them mayash room
right room. There you go,catch, yeah, there you go.
Yeah, oh funny. And uh, there's the time of the year and
(14:52):
type of places that mushrooms grow verydepending on his species, and yeah,
habitat matters. You know. Thesespongies that we talked about, like this
one here on the top of mymushroom stick, they've usually grow in the
spring. We're just about coming intomorales, their morales. Locally, they're
(15:13):
nicknames sponges because they look like asponge, kind of like a sponge you'd
have in the in the bathtub.But the name of them is morels marcella.
There's a lot of different nicknames forthem. They're typically found in the
spring nationwide. Right now, thereis a there's a website you can look
at what actually shows you the migration. They let you know when they're growing.
(15:35):
In Georgia, they're picking them inGeorgia, then Kentucky, Tennessee,
and they go up and you canlook and see it's almost like a duck
migration. You can see where themorals are being found and harvested by other
hunters. So there are sites youcan just look at that, Like right
now, I know that they foundthem in southern Missouri as of yesterday.
So as the temperature gets warmer uphere in central Illinois, north central Illinois,
(15:58):
we should start see them in abouttwo weeks. You know, we
think you know a question A lotof people ask, And I told some
people say, hey, listen,we're going to be doing the mushroom Emichode.
And the first thing I hear is, you know, how do you
know? I mean, I wouldbe I would pick the wrong mushroom and
I would get one that's poisonous andit would kill me. Well, and
I'm sure the answer is quite obvious, but how do you you know?
(16:19):
Is there an easy way? Imean, is there's just like, if
this mushroom has got these spots onit, they're poison is there an easy
way to tell which ones are poisonous? Well? The best the best thing
to do is don't pick a mushroomif you don't know what it is,
right, makes sense. We suggestthat you take a field guide with you.
You know, when you're going tohunt, hunt or harvest mushrooms,
it's good to bring someone with orlet someone know where you're going. If
(16:41):
you're going by yourself, people getlost in the woods, even in national
parks. They're looking for mushrooms,they get lost. So we recommend you
take a compass with you, awhistle, let somebody know where you're going,
what time you're going to be there, because if you don't show up
for a supper, then they say, hey, the mushroom guy, where
is he? You know, we'rewe've got to fish dinner. And he
had mushrooms for he might have hemight have held on a ravine. So
(17:06):
yeah, you know, bring someinsects, spray with you, long shirts,
you know, your shoes, you'reI'm sorry, your pants and your
socks. A lot of ticks outthere in the spring and in the fall
when you look for the mataki,so you want to be safe. First.
Second, to answer your question,maya, the the habitat and temperature
(17:26):
in time of year all matter.You typically find these in the spring.
Coming up here in April, May, April and June and typically thereby dead
elms. For some reason, theyare these and the batakia parasites to trees
and they get part of the myceliumand they're usually found on dead elms.
(17:48):
The difference between the ones we sawin the video and these you got to
kind of hunt for these. Thesedon't mean you go to an do elm
tree and you find a bunch ofthem. You find a whole bag full
of them, and you can't reallygo back to next year and find them
the spot, whereas the ones wesaw in the video you can go there
time every year and find more eachyear the same place. Yes, so
it's like matakia and more like farming. These these sponge mushrooms are more like
(18:14):
hunting. So that's the title ofthe show. Hunting and gathering, hunting
for the morals and gathering of themataki because they always grow into the same
spot, the same tree. Yes, that's cool, and actually it's a
good good thing to say for allkinds of outdoors sports. Urge of ventry.
Tell people where you are, keepsafe, and you know, like
(18:40):
it's good for everyone out there.But once we cannot see which one is
bad or good. I have areally hard question. Can some mushroom actually
keep you? Yes, there's anumber of mush The worst mushroom in then
I the States is called the deathcap. I don't know what the Latin
(19:03):
name is it, because that soundssafe, right. And the sad thing
is that a death cap looks likewhat they call a honey brown mushroom.
I mean they're similar. They lookslike a standard mushroom, like the umbrella,
the umbrella looking thing like you seea toad under in a picture.
But yeah, the U and Idon't typically pick honey honey mushrooms honey browns
(19:26):
because you know, I'm just notthat familiar with them as much as I
am with the other two a takiand the spongy. So unless you really
know what you're doing, or you'rewith my collegist or someone who's versed and
what what they really are, Iwouldn't I wouldn't touch them. Yeah,
you don't want to take a chanceuntil you so even touch. You don't
want to even touch like it's verydanger No, I mean it's not like
(19:49):
poison ivy where if you get onyour hand you'll get like a rash on
your skin. It just you wouldn'twant to eat them, right, You
wouldn't want to taste them or eatthem. That's where that's talking. So
now I have a question, isit like a snake bite? Like how
long does it take for this mushroomto kill you? Do you know any
of that? Or no? Imean, you know, you know,
(20:10):
well, there's a lot of historyabout the death cap, about people back
in you know, early times,fourteen hundreds or sixteen hundreds of kind of
famous people trying them out and mistakingthem for another mushroom and dying from it.
Yeah, there was some royalty inFrance. I can't remember the story,
but a lot of people would youpick a mushroom, think it's one
thing, taste it and then they'regone, you know. And so I
(20:34):
can't remember who it was. Itwas some female French royalty or blue blood
that tried went and didn't work.Our fearless producer says the death trap,
and so I think this was inreference to the death Trap. Sounds like
a rock band, he says,death Cap. I'm sorry, death cat.
It's called the death car, deathwrap, death although that's a great
(20:56):
name for that. Sorry, yeah, but that's what he says sounds like
a great rock. Yeah, yeah, death cap, that's what we're looking
for. Hey, so all right, so which mushrooms here in the Midwestern
United States should people avoid? Imean, we know, you know this
death cap or death cap not here? Right, well, there are death
caps here, okay, you know, And I don't know what time to
(21:17):
hear those grow. It's because I, you know, I stick to what
I know, and what I knowis the spongies and the matakia like in
the video. I know a littlebit more about other chantrells and oyster mushrooms
and poisoned giant poison puff balls thatyou can eat when they're young. My
dad has those in his yard.Yeah, range, Yeah, a lot
of people. You got to eatthem when they're white and slice them up
(21:38):
like bread. Unfortunately they don't haveany taste. That's weird. They come
up. I swear to God,these these things must grow an inch an
hour. Yeah, they get reallybig because they all of a sudden,
there's take a ball in your yard. It's like, what's nothing there yesterday?
Obviously? Yeah, you got theand they're so bright white like snow
that you're like, what what isthat that we leave, you know,
the garbage blow over there and inthe woods. They're like all over the
(22:00):
place. And then if you lookat those now that we're white in the
spring, because they'll start growing soontoo. Now my t shirts should be
so white. I mean they arewhite white white. Yeah. Now they're
all the they're all kind of yuckylooking, look like an old stump this
time. Wow and oh sorry,go ahead, no, just the color
of them. And the same onethat he's talking about in the spring looks
(22:22):
like a big white oblong bean.I mean they're huge, as big as
like a watermelon usually. And nowthis time of year, they they've all
their spores have come out, andthey call him puff bulls because you hit
them, you can actually see thespores coming out of them like smoke.
But now they just they look likea rotten piece stump. You know,
they're all a dark brown. Andso the only time you can really eat
(22:45):
those is when they're white. New. You got to slice them like bread,
make sure there's no bugs in them, the slices that you get,
and then you really have to addthe taste. You have to add cinnamon
or a you're because they have ifyou ate them by themselves. There's really
no taste to them. I liketo run over them with a lot on
bar because I think that's the otherfun that's just yes, especially when they
get older, when they when thepowder comes up. Yeah right, yeah,
(23:07):
And the problem with that is you'rejust spreading more seed for more of
them. Well, and I'm highlyallergic to mold, so that's a good
covenant. And how big do somespecies of mushrooms get to be? Well,
like I said in the video,is mataki that we were looking at
earlier that we find under oak trees. Yeah, the biggest one I've ever
heard of in the area here isforty two pounds. Typically they're twenty pounds,
(23:29):
ten pounds or under. Most ofthe time they're like under five pounds.
Risky. You had a picture,yeah, and we're gonna look at
that in a little bit because,yeah, because you it went viral on
the My wife posted that on theinternet and it went, uh, you
know, it was the only timeI ever went viral, and I'm pretty
excited about that. So the localradio guy called. Yeah, it was
less than fifty minutes, but thelocal radio guy called me and he interviewed
(23:55):
me, and then it made thepaper in the regional paper instead of it's
nice being amos is somewhere other thanthe post office. Yes, yeah,
I usually take my picture down onthe post of us when I see it.
We just taught my mother helps thatwe taught Maya what that meant today,
because he's like, what are youtalking about? Now? I know
what you guys mean. Some ofmy cousins up there too, so I
(24:21):
need to check it up if Cedoubles there, because I may be in
danger here. I've been there foryears. Man, I got a permanent
little spot there. He's yeah,changing the picture, but I'm always there.
Let's see here, so I havegot here. So is it is
it true that certain mushrooms are usedonly for medicinal purposes because they don't taste
(24:44):
very good. Yes, there's alot of companies that take different kinds of
mushrooms, like the Lions made LionsLions main Chautaki coral mushrooms. There's a
lot of As my wife was sayingin the video, some of them have
vitamin B. Some are used foranxiety and arthritis. And you know I
(25:04):
spoke to you before the show ringabout the guy that was found in the
Appalachian Mountains five thousand. I thinkthey call him Uzzi or Ozzi, the
five thousand year old. Yeah,he had a mushroom hanging on his belt.
I believe it was like a chatakiand they used it for aspirin back
then. So like five thousand yearsago, you really couldn't go to Walmart
or you know, anywhere to getas you had to pick it out of
(25:26):
the woods. They didn't have,no, they didn't have well, you
know, it was in the beginning. It was you had to go find
it yourself. But he knew,you know, and they knew that which
ones to pick and and most ofwhat I've learned is handed down from my
ancestors. I learned from my grandfatherand my uncle how to pick these mushrooms,
and they found they learned from theirancestors, so it's you handed down.
(25:48):
Somebody had to taste the bad ones, though, I was just thinking,
you know, yeah everything, somebodyhad to taste the bad ones.
And I mean, who found thedeath gap? You know what I mean?
That didn't work out well. Ijust know history named it appropriately that
Yeah, sure, yeah said andhow long does it take to dehydrate mushrooms?
And also how long did you here ro drate then to cook with
(26:17):
dr Well, we we dehydrate boththis these these here, the the sponges
morales and the mataki, and youknow, it really depends on like these
are kind of thin, they're they'retypically hollow on the inside, and if
you ever find one that's solid,it's called a false false morale, which
is not you don't want to eatthose, so you want to make sure
(26:37):
if you ever find these, ifthe whole inside is hollow from here all
the way down, got to behollow on the inside. If it's ever
solid, it's called the false morale. And I don't know how poisonous that
would be. It's something you wouldn'twant to eat. But as far as
dehydrating them and hydrating them, dehydratingthem, it depends on these dehydrate fast.
(26:59):
It's a thin scar in there's nota lot of moisture typically to him.
Where the mataki, you remember,we put them in water to get
all the bugs to bring off,so they're like soaked, right, So
when we clean those, you're insome and they're a lot thicker, like
a meaty more meat to them.Those take a lot longer to dehydrate and
vice versa to rehydrates. It's longerto rehydrate a mataki and less time to
(27:23):
rehydrate. These morales interesting, youknow, I'm surprised, and we're gonna
look at a couple of comments heremister Mustang seven seven four, how you
doing and wonderful'll see him at Canucopia, I said, good evening, oh,
Camper sixty nine, which we dosee at Canucopia, and we'll probably
be eating having some dinner with him. Good evening. Sorry, I'm like,
(27:44):
I'm just surprised no one has broughtup magic mushrooms because I have friends
in Europe and they're always like,yeah, magic mushrooms, like god boy.
But you know, that's kind ofa thing where you know, I
don't know, you I find Iwould be scared to get if I weren't
into that, because I'm not,but I would be worried about getting the
(28:06):
wrong kind of mushroom and getting prettysick on it. You know, I
don't know, that's just me,but yeah, I don't know, but
I prefer them even try like I'mgoing to buy the ones. It isn't
exactly I don't know anything about.Yeah, So and this is why we
got Uncle Bill on the shop.There's a lot of research being done on
(28:29):
psychedelic mushrooms throughout this country and others. Really a lot of it's done,
you know, off off of ourcoast, and I think there's a place
done in Puerto Rico or something,not sure down there, but some there's
a lot of research being done hereand they're trying to you know, there's
soldiers that have PTSD from oh wow, and they found that some of the
mushrooms have helped them. So theresearch is slow, but it's you know,
(28:53):
because it had a bad rap backand the Nixon are yeah, with
LSD and stuff like that. Butit's coming back. And I think that
I think in our lifetime we'll see, uh, we'll see psychedelic mushroom therapy
being used. Well, sure they'redoing it with cannabis, so why not
write you know exactly so. Andactually I saw in Europe, I don't
(29:14):
remember where, but people were doingfor studies, of course, micro doses
of of mushrooms to take care aboutdepressions and uh stuff like that. Yeah,
yep, it's it's being I thinkyou're going to see it sooner than
(29:34):
later. Yeah, just you know, it's a matter of just getting it
approved or legalized, but you knowit has to be done under a supervision.
Yeah, because you know in someday, you know, they can make
them. Yeah. And it's likethe marijuana and medical grade stuff. I
mean, it's it's regulated, it'scontrolled, it's all that good stuff.
And yeah, I can see that. How good you know, anything that
(29:56):
makes uh ex soldier? I guesswhat would call a veteran more comfortable and
more happy because I mean, youknow, honestly, their service was just
immeasurable. I mean, honestly,it really is. I don't know a
better word to describe what I've seenon the YouTube channels with this. Also,
(30:18):
it changes people's lives, people whohave you know, maybe like she
said, depressed or have other issuesgoing on. It's a life changing event
for a lot of people. It'struly life changing. And I think even
if you're you know, have issueswith drugs or alcohol, PTSD, anxiety,
depression, it can help all thatand some of it. It's truly
(30:40):
life changing for them. Yeah.And I think there's a lot on YouTube
that you can look and see aboutthose I think that's fantastic. Maya this
is your turn. We're going toturn the microphone over to you. Because
this is the part of the show. I'll let you finish that sentence going,
Yeah, the part I like themmost the picture. All this talk
and stuff, it's all about thepicture, right, all right? Well,
(31:04):
have you call him up ask uncleJan if you would be so gracious
one, please let us take alook of the pictures. Oh there's the
giant. Yeah, yeah, that'sthe big one. That's thirty six pounds.
That's the picture you went viral.That's the picture that went viral.
Yeah, my wife took the pictureand a friend of mine that worked with
(31:26):
Ringo and I, Sean Sons.He he measured it with me. We
measured it in two different scales.They weighed thirty six pounds and that was
found in the mushroom on the video, the oak tree of the first video
we saw that had the green bottomthat had fallen over. That's where I
found it. Do you okay?So do you how do you measure something
like that straight across? I meanhonestly or did you do measure like a
(31:49):
circumference or well we just we don'tmeasure it, you know, with like
you know circumference or diameter. It'sthe weight. It's just weight. Okay,
wait, because that's you know,thirty six forty pounds. When this
went viral, some a family fromAnawan sent me a picture of a newspaper
clipping where two young boys found onethat weighed thirty pounds. I think they
(32:09):
saw mine, and they don't knowhow the hell they got hold of how
the heck they got hold of me, but they sent it to me.
Well, you're a rockstar in thepost office. Yeah, I went.
When I went viral, everybody wantedto know where they were. Right,
Wow, that's amazing, you knowwhat. Okay, this is a weird
question. But there's something like thatbig and that just ugly. I mean,
I think it just looks funky.Yeah. Is it stink? You
(32:31):
know, when they get older theyhave a it's I don't me it doesn't
stink because to me, it remindsme of, you know, as a
child, finding them with my uncle, my granma. So it's a nice
smell for me. But some peoplesay that they find it when they get
bigger, older like that, thatthey have a stench to them. But
it's really just its earthy ground smellbecause Nutty. I'm going with this.
(32:52):
You know, if you have footfungus, I think that probably stinks,
right, So I think this isfungus, right, is stink It should
stink, right, No, itdoesn't for me. It's you know,
it's it's a it's a reminder ofmy youth and it's a good Yeah.
It's a childhood. Yeah. Hebrings good memories. Yeah, that's goods.
(33:15):
Well, it's not mushrooms. Yeah, I have to do with well,
you know, it's a fun guy, right, He's a fun guy
on water, he's a fun guyin the land. He's a fun guy
in the watery fish and that wasa fun day to catch that fun fish.
I'm actually having that mounted right now. We taught Colleen cle and Johnny
(33:35):
cool as the buzz bass was theresome buzz bass involved with buzz lures used
to catch that's a large mouth bass. And by the way that bass was
set free. I did not harvesthim, let him go, And we're
getting a reproduction made of him becauseit was like the biggest bass I ever
caught. Wow, that was abad as biss I love that. Where
(33:58):
was it? Where did you catchthat bad aspect? Bad lake? Thunderbird
Central allnois you weighed six pounds twoounces. That's a beautiful area up there.
Likes you. And I've boated upthere with the canoe and the motor.
Remember that's where all the rich peoplelive up there. No, they're
that rich people, mostly retired,mostly retired people. And now I really
did Oh yeah, right right,that's that's beautiful though. That's beautiful fish.
(34:22):
Thanks jov thank you. Oh area, that's Central Wisconsin, chipwall Flowadge.
I'm a kind of a musky guy. That's the Oh you told me
about the muskies right next to theboat, and you can like you.
Yeah, they're not afraid of aboat. It's crazyly they chase the lure
right next to that one I caughtfurther behind the boat. But how do
they taste? We don't need them. You don't need them. You just
(34:44):
let them go. What you're doingis you're trying to catch the trophy.
There's some people that eat them.I've had them before. They're okay,
if you're hungry enough, you'd eatthem. Yes, if he was hungry
enough, you'd eat my hat.But yeah, we most of most muskies
are released. It's a great catchingrelease program that's in the Midwest and country
wide. Now nationwide, they mostlyrelease them and so another guy can catch
(35:06):
it, right, another fun guy. That's really kind of an ugly fish,
if you really. People call themthe fresh water Barracouta because they look
like they got a lot of teeth. Yeah, true, they do look
kind of nasty, dangerous. Yeah, they got some nasty teeth in the
front. Interesting, now see,And this is this is how this is
how you look. This is howI reconnize. If you came in a
(35:28):
suit somewhere, I don't think Iwould never recognize you without your hat or
suit. Her. Well, that'skind of how we dressed at work.
You can see the conservation we're releasingfish into the lake there at Thunderbird.
That's I think those are crappie orbass. I'm not sure which, but
there's a truck and I'm just showingthe The people that at like Thunderbird have
made the paper that they were puttingfish into the lake, just taking their
(35:51):
money and going to lunch. That'svery cool. Yeah, it is very
cool. Here we go. Yeah, there's pictures of my lovely wife.
Yeah. Yeah, you see downin the top picture is our two dogs,
and her and I had a picnictable, and covering the picnic table
are all matakis. It literally coversthat picnic tables eight foot long and probably
(36:15):
three feet wide, and they're justcovered. We had food for everybody.
We gave it to the taverns,to our neighbors, to the friends,
relatives. And you can see lowerright, same thing, a lot of
mushrooms. There are some honey brownsthere in the front of that one though,
which resemble that death cap. Now, her father in law, my
(36:36):
father in law, her dad waswith us and when we picked those,
so he got those honey mushrooms.And then the left lower left is my
lovely wife with two huge sponges andmorels. Yeah. You know those look
like ice cream cones, aren't there, right? Yeah, And they turn
yellow like that in the when they'rein their prime in the season in April,
(36:57):
but early on they're called they're morethey're more yellow look I'm sorry,
more yellow looking. Yeah, Ithink they're called they call them the same
mushroom. They just grow bigger andmore dark gold like that. Later.
Yeah, it was too bad thatyour lovely wife couldn't make it here for
this episode. She was she hadshe had work today. Very very very
cool that you guys do this together. I think that's awesome. We do
(37:20):
this and we we she's a wildlifephotographer. We've taken pictures. She's been
published in the Department of Natural Resourcesfor Illinois and cover a couple of covers
of books with Charis Charis Chemical notCharaous Chemical Kars Courtyard. Yeah, she's
taken some wildlife pictures for that.We have some hung in the clubhouse and
(37:42):
we also look for aunt low shed. So yeah, we do a lot
of outdoor activities together. We enjoyit. Very nice lady to him,
add she's the real deal. Yea, she has she can't see real Well,
they're both rock stars, and bythese guys, they're seriously a power
couple. Rockstar. They both probablythey have capes at home. I'm sure
(38:04):
something. Capes have probably got lostin the woods. You haven't seen them
in a while. I love it. There we go, Oh, yeah,
that's when I went viral. That'sthe the mushroom enthusiast finds largest hen
in the woods. Yeah, that'swhat you call that. What do you
call a hen? Well, theycall them hen of the woods. There's
also people call them, you know, nationwide, they call them mataki.
(38:28):
And the word bataki is, likemy wife said earlier, Japanese word that
said means mataki means dancing mushroom.Because the Japanese was so happy when they
found when they started dancing dancing mushroom. That's what mataki means that. And
they're very popular in Japan and Chinawhere they're found in the wild. They're
also found in the Canada and UnitedStates. And they're also grown and you
(38:51):
can actually grow them yourself. There'skits where you can grow these things.
Huh with oak logs. Yeah,oh, that's cool. They're also called
the there's other nicknames. There's asheep's head, rams head. The Italians
called the karens. Hard to spellit katting You kind of roll your tongue
a little bit, you know,that's what That's why I always called them
(39:16):
growing up, because we had somany Italians in my hometown and they all
said, let's go hunt for kattings. Cut interesting. M oh, here's
the d hydene. This is cool. This is what I was telling you
about. I do it here.I don't do mushrooms, but I do
a lot of other things. Andfor canoe trips, and these things are
(39:37):
really cool. You guys, howlong does it take to dry the mushrooms
that you sponges? Let's just say, for instance, how long sponges are
takes less than time than these.What this you're looking at here is bataki
mushrooms that we you know, pickeddown to smaller pieces, and obviously when
I'm smaller, because they have youknow, they have moisture already from the
(39:59):
forest. Then you bring them home, you dip them in water, soak
them to yeah, right, sothen you bring them out of there.
So there, These matakias are reallycontain a lot of moisture, so the
time to dehydrate them is a lotlonger, like twenty four hours. My
wife does all the dehydrating. Idon't know exactly what time, how long
she knows by looking at them.Let's get her on the phone. I
think they just get crunchy like potatochips. Then you know, they're oh
(40:21):
yeah, yeah right, and thenshe puts them in a you can put
them in paper bags, I don'tknow. She puts them in jars like
canning jars with lid on them.But it's also done with paper bags like
the old lunch bags. You justput them in a paper bag and fold
it and they stay for a longtime. Interesting. Interesting, And you
can do the same with morales.But they're easier to dehydrate because the skins
(40:43):
than there, and you don't seasonthese before. You don't like salt them
or anything like that. But theseare added to soups, added to meat,
like on top of steaks, there'ssauteed. Right, you can.
You can rehydrate them and pretty muchdo anything you can with the regular You
don't do anything to me before youdehydrate them, all right, No,
No, they're just dehydrated. Butyou know some people that use milk to
(41:06):
rehydrate and we get more taste.They do lose a little bit of taste.
So if you take these after theydehydrated and rehydrate them and eat them
compared to a wild one that youjust picked that same day, it has
a lot more earthy, netty,more of a taste that you'd want it
at like a finer restaurant. Well, you mean once you once you dehydrate,
yeah, dehydrate and they lose theylose some of their I mean if
(41:29):
you put them right, and afresh one that you've just picked today compared
to when you took out of abag from last year. You can tell
the difference. And how about thebenefits it laws when you dehydrate as well.
Yeah, I believe there's loss ofsome of the some of the vitrans
nutrients that you get by dehydrating.It's like any food or vegetable. You
(41:50):
know, if you do that,you know if you don't. You know
the fresher, the my neighbor,we'd give him these matakis and he would
put them like raw and just rinsethem off and put them rawn salads.
I never knew anybody that did that, but they all lived so and they
did it a year after year.So because I told him, I said,
Jerry, you know, I've neverheard of anybody put him He goes,
oh, yeah, we've beaten himlike that all the time. So
(42:12):
all you do is mushrooms. Youwould do that, right, put them
on a salad? Yeah yeah,but he did that. And see the
thing is in my ancestral behavior andthe people I knew that ate them,
we always fried them. I didn'tknow anybody that put them dry on salads
like a chataki, but he did. He says, oh, yeah,
I used to do that when Iwas a kid, and they go,
okay. I've never heard of amataki making anyone sick. Never, But
(42:34):
I have heard of people that haveallergic reactions to sponges. These here the
moral mushrooms. My dad actually gotsick when we were frying them up one
time and we had to take himto the hospital. But he didn't have
to regurgitator and he gets well prettyquick. But yeah, this is possible
that some people have a and youknow these affect him. It's very few.
(43:00):
I've only heard of a few cases, including my father. But when
it comes to matakia, I haveheard anybody ever get sick, even from
the rawins and salad. Oh god, yeah, that's good. And uh
far as someone who wants to learnabout mos shroowners as well hunting and a
harvesting dan whatsurce would you recommend?I would recommend a mushroom field guide.
(43:27):
The National Odd Bonn Society has agood one, you know, and you
want a field guide that's small.Some people buy a mushroom book and there's
a lot of them out there andthey'll all help you. But you know,
if you buy a book from Amazon, or something that you bring it
home and it's you know, thesize of a shoe box. It's hard
to take that in the field withyou and say, hey, let's open
up the Bible like Moses, youknow, and they look at the Ten
(43:50):
Commandments, you trying to figure outwhat mushrooming is. Yeah, these handy
little field guides do just as well. And again a National Odd Bound Society
has a really good one. There'sother ones too. Most field guides,
uh, you know, written bymy cologists who know what they're looking at,
know what they're doing, and morepictures the better. But yeah,
National One Society has a good one. That's what I use. Yeah,
(44:16):
still alive it well, Bill RiskyRiesca listen. I want to thank you
for finally come on to show Greento come on the show. You can
pick up your check on the wayout. Thanks for having me, Thanks
having me. I enjoyed that.Yeah, thanks, it was It's a
pleasure having you here. Man.I knew it would be fun and I
was excited for Maya to meet youas well. Yes, thank you very
(44:38):
much for being here. It wasa great show. Well, we also
want to thank you our audience fortuning in to outdoors people, We'll see
you next week, and actually we'llsee you this weekend at Canoe Kopia Campus
sixty nine said, see you thisweekend, and I'm sure we will break
a little bread together up there,and you guys will have an opportunity to
(45:00):
finally meet the famous Miss Maya markSaki. So we'll see well, we'll
see the regular show next week,and we'll see you at Canucopia this weekend.
Kids, take care, so long
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comments should be directed to those showhosts. Thank you for choosing W FOURCY
(00:21):
Radio. Welcome to outdoors People withMe. Cw Getz and her Maya mar
Zaki. Good evening. It's Wednesday, March sixth, twenty twenty four.
(00:54):
I'll tell you what. We hada fun date that a Maya is up
here from Brazil. Yeah. Wedid a little tour of a whiskey was
it. I wouldn't call it awhiskey fact. What do you call it?
Not a factory a versus distillery distillery? Yes, yeah, it sounds
better because they do like four differenttypes of acolic. Yeah, and I
think they're going to be making kshasasoon. Yeah. I love it.
(01:21):
But it was really it was quitean education a little tour and yeah,
and the gentleman that was there thatowns the place, we did a little
video footage and I think we maymake an episode out of that. So
I think it's going to be it'llbe fun, It'll be a lot of
fun. Yeah, we had agood day today here Illinois. It was
about fifty degrees and you know what, let's see what that says. I'm
(01:42):
going to reach my handy little fiftydegrees. That would be ten degrees celsius
up here in Illinois, so notas quite as warm as it was last
few days. And I think theweather forecast when we're we're going to be
Maya and I are going to bea Canu Copia this weekend. We're going
to be moderators for Cliff Jacobson andKevin Callon and bab O'Hara and there's one
(02:07):
other gentleman and I don't remember whothe other one is, please forgive me,
but we're gonna do a little livebroadcasting from the show as well.
But it's I think it's supposed tobe in the fifties up there too.
I think it's about the same temperatureas we're getting right now, so not
too bad. Usually it's cold upthere, really cold. This is going
to be a switch. It iscold for me because it's like Brazilian winter
(02:30):
or wars. But it feels good. It's not that cold. It's really
nice and you so I'm very gladwith that weather. Yeah, you surprised
me. You came with a jacketfrom Brazil, and I was like,
wow, I didn't think anybody inBrazil in the jackets. Well, I
buff in Canada when I was leavingthere. Right, Oh, that's right,
that's right. So that's kind oflike what do you have a hand
(02:51):
well, not handry now leftover clothing. I like that. What do we
got here? One seventy four degreesin South Florida. Oh see, that's
perfect. And that's what kind ofwhat we were having the last few days.
It was very nice weather. That'svery cool. It's very good.
So cold so cold you should youshould live in Brazil. It's very if
(03:14):
you, yeah, because like whenit gets to be I don't know,
eighty, it's cold in Brazil,right so oh yeah, like, well
I made that up, but it'slike anything less than ninety. You guys
are freeze of man. Yes,I love it. Well, we got
a little special treat tonight Tonight's guests. I used to work with this gentleman,
and I will give him a formalintroduction, just like I do every
(03:36):
other guest, but this was thiswas my buddy at I DOT and we
made it through some very difficult snowstormsand together and uh, you know,
provide moral support, coffee, whateverit took. And I really enjoyed my
time with him. And I said, let's get you on the show.
(03:58):
Let's talk about what you really reallyknowing. He knows mushrooms. Tonight's episode
Hunting and Gathering. Fun guy witha fun guy, And nothing could be
more true. So sixty two yearold retired highway maintainer with the Illinois Department
of Transportation, Bill Risky ri Escaand his wife April have enjoyed hunting various
(04:21):
species of mushrooms near their home inthe Illinois River Valley area for a number
of years. The couple also enjoyspreserving the mushrooms by dehydrating and packaging them
for storage. And with that,welcome to the show, Bill, Hi,
thanks for having me. Well,you're welcome, and thank you for
(04:41):
being here. And so we're gonnacall you risky because that's how I know
you at work and you can sharewith them how you know me what they
used to coming work. I'm goingto refer to you as ringo because that's
what we called you at work.The PG stuff they called me. Yeah,
you were a drummer, and iseverybody called your ringo? Yeah,
and that kind of turned it toring ring ring, ringo ring. You
(05:03):
know, that's something that I thinkthe listeners from the Campy Show and Outdoors
people don't know you were a drummerA good one. Really well, thank
you. Wow, I'm flattered.I'm flattered. You know. It's funny
because we talked about you coming onthe show here for months and months and
(05:24):
he said yeah, no, no, no, no, and finally I
talked to it. Yeah. Ididn't even have to pay him, you
know, so that was good.I really like it to get paid.
Deal's a deal now, yeah,yeah, yeah, where's my agent?
He just yeah, he just didn't. Yeah, he's on strike with the
(05:46):
rest of the world. Actually,all right, one, I'll tell you
what. We've got three little videoclips. Let's have you play those back
to back and then we'll get somequestions. We'll have Bill Fields some questions,
how's that I think those videos are? It says there, what happened?
(06:09):
We got? Those are no.So here's my taki mushroom that I
picked last week, the one thatyou seen in the kitchen that we were
already processing. And this is theoak that for many years I took many
mushrooms from. Unfortunately, the mushroomis a parasite of the oak and it
(06:30):
eventually will kill the tree. However, the mushrooms will grow years after the
tree is gone where the stump was, so you'll still be able to harvest
and forage tree mushrooms long after thetrees passed away. This one just fell
this past year. I picked themoff this last year. I asked the
homeowner. We're on private property now, and I did ask the homeowner if
I could pick them, and Iactually shared them with him, and he
(06:54):
said in the future that I couldcome. And I picked this one this
year, and there was also oneon the other side. But ultimately they're
found at the base of oak trees. This is a great old white oak
and many years produced them. Butlike I said, it's a parasite and
eventually will kill the tree. Inthis case, it killed it and it
fell over. Beautiful. Look atall those brackets. Pretty there's one right
(07:28):
there. Yeah, so we're we'relooking for oak trees because that's where the
Koreans grow under and unfortunately, likeBill had said earlier, they will infect
an oak and it will die.So we have this oak right here that
(07:49):
has this really pretty normally there.I haven't seen too many that are all
this yellow like this, but it'sreally nice, moist, and it looks
like it's already this oak here isalready dying. But the matakis are really
good for their anti inflammation. They'rea great immune booster. They've done tons
(08:13):
of studies on them about all thehealth benefits. So basically what you want
to do, and I usually don'tcarry a knife with me, I just
kind of will go and twist themand pop it right off of there and
see so you can see all thedirt and some of the leaves that's grown
(08:35):
in there. And like Bill said, we'll just take this home and soak
it for a couple of days,and uh, like a sponge. Yeah,
they're they're they're they're like a sponge, they really are. But they
get the name from they're called matakis. But They're also called dancing mushrooms because
when the Japanese used to find them, they would dance because they were so
(08:58):
excited, and obviously they knew allthe health benefits too. So we'll check
this tree again next year. Andthere's a little piece there that fell off,
a little piece right there. Butbasically this is what hen of the
woods, or locally they'll call korenssheep's head, sheep's head, rams head,
(09:20):
rams head. This is a kingof mushrooms. It's the it's the
tastiest mushroom there probably is. That'ssubjective, of course, but they grow
in the fall between end of AugustSeptember October is when we find most of
ours. Some of them are darkerthan that, some are black and brown.
There isn't any really nasty mushroom that'sa look alike this time of year.
(09:43):
It's mostly if you find one likethis or or a darker color.
Uh, there's not a there's nota one that's that's similar that's that would
be toxic to you. So thiswould be the king of the mushrooms,
probably the best tasting other than themorals. So and that we look for
these morals in the spring and welook for the matakis or crens in the
fall, and we usually bring apair of binoculars with us. I have
(10:05):
a monocular that I use, sothat way, if you can see the
bottom of an oak far away,you can look and see if it has
any you can actually spot them prettyfar away sometimes. And that way you're
not walking up and down ditches thatare pretty like. We have some big
ravines here. We didn't ask theproperty owner for this. We own this
property, so this is ours.And once you find a tree like this,
(10:26):
this tree will produce mushrooms for yearseven after it dies. And there's
another one down there we know of, so it's foraging here is like farming
with these mushrooms. You don't haveto hunt them so much as if you
know where your tree's at and youmark your trees and you can go back
to them each year, you cando really well in a really short time.
(10:46):
Yeah. So you can slice theseup kind of like a steak.
You can fry them. You canput just butter on them and fry them
up. I dehydrate and then Ilike to put them in capsules to for
myself. But you can put someegg and milk and do it like that,
put them in soups, dehydrate themto put in soups for later,
(11:09):
mushroom soup and stuff like that.But they are delicious and very very beneficial
for your health. And the treeearlier on in the video that they get
as big as forty pounds. Ifound a record thirty six pounder on that
same oak that we showed earlier thathad passed away. It was thirty six
pounds we weighed, and I haveheard of a forty pound years ago.
(11:31):
So when you get in the thirtysix forty pound, that's about as big
as they get. That's a prettygood sized mushroom. Doesn't take very many
to get a lot of food,and you can store them too over winter
in the Yeah, I'll dehydrate themand I've got the little oxygen packets or
whatever those are called, and putthose in with them, and yeah,
(11:54):
they stay good for a long timeor you can freeze them too. So
that was pretty cool. I thankyou for doing this. Yeah, if
we had a third video, andapparently it didn't make it, I don't
know, and I thought I sentit to one, but apparently it's not
there. So I apologize for that. But that video, the one that
we don't have, was you droppingthe mushroom into a bucket of water and
(12:20):
you do that for was it forthe bugs to kind of extract the bugs?
Is that how it works? Yeah, you've seen in April there pulled
the mushroom off the ground. Therewas all kinds of leaves and sticks and
debris stuck to it. Well,there's also insects. There's ants and stink
bugs, you know, just allkinds of insects in them, and spiders.
(12:41):
So if you put them in waterovernight, and sometimes we just lead
them in there for two you canleave them in the water for a pretty
long time. Sometimes you find themdried out. The older ones are kind
of drying, and you put themin the water not only to get rid
of the bugs and the sticks andthe debris that comes floating to the top,
but you also hydrate the mushroom becausesome of them, when they're like
(13:01):
almost at the edge where they're driedout, the water helps them rehydrate and
they just they pick it up likea sponge, so almost like they're fresh
again. Let me ask you howmany how many different species of mushrooms are
there in the world? In theworld. There's probably around numbers fourteen thousand
or so that are named. However, there's a lot of mushrooms that the
(13:24):
mycologists, and by the way,I'm not a mycologist. They know it
more about mushrooms. There's a lotthat haven't been found yet or haven't been
discovered. There's new mushrooms being discoveredall the time. So you go out
there, you might find something thatyou can't find in a field book.
And then if that's the case,you might want to let your local micologist
or a field and soil and watertownship find know about it. So interesting
(13:48):
it might be something that you canname after he So I don't know the
ringo. I think I'd like tocall myself a micologist like that, Mike,
what is my collegists? What isthat? Those are people that study
mushrooms. Those are the fun guyguys. I'm just a fun guy.
I'm a fun guy. But thoseare fun guy guys. Guy. I
(14:09):
love that they study them. Anduh, they were the ones that write
a lot of these field books thatwe use, you know, to find
out to make sure we got onethat is poisonous or could be bad for
her health. So yeah, mycologists for the guys a study him.
Yes, that's fancy. And uh, I wish I could name a musher
(14:30):
on under my name. So I'mgoing to hunt one in Brazil, try
to find one, but try tofind when that's not in the book.
And I think you might have awinner. She could call them mayash room
right room. There you go,catch, yeah, there you go.
Yeah, oh funny. And uh, there's the time of the year and
(14:52):
type of places that mushrooms grow verydepending on his species, and yeah,
habitat matters. You know. Thesespongies that we talked about, like this
one here on the top of mymushroom stick, they've usually grow in the
spring. We're just about coming intomorales, their morales. Locally, they're
(15:13):
nicknames sponges because they look like asponge, kind of like a sponge you'd
have in the in the bathtub.But the name of them is morels marcella.
There's a lot of different nicknames forthem. They're typically found in the
spring nationwide. Right now, thereis a there's a website you can look
at what actually shows you the migration. They let you know when they're growing.
(15:35):
In Georgia, they're picking them inGeorgia, then Kentucky, Tennessee,
and they go up and you canlook and see it's almost like a duck
migration. You can see where themorals are being found and harvested by other
hunters. So there are sites youcan just look at that, Like right
now, I know that they foundthem in southern Missouri as of yesterday.
So as the temperature gets warmer uphere in central Illinois, north central Illinois,
(15:58):
we should start see them in abouttwo weeks. You know, we
think you know a question A lotof people ask, And I told some
people say, hey, listen,we're going to be doing the mushroom Emichode.
And the first thing I hear is, you know, how do you
know? I mean, I wouldbe I would pick the wrong mushroom and
I would get one that's poisonous andit would kill me. Well, and
I'm sure the answer is quite obvious, but how do you you know?
(16:19):
Is there an easy way? Imean, is there's just like, if
this mushroom has got these spots onit, they're poison is there an easy
way to tell which ones are poisonous? Well? The best the best thing
to do is don't pick a mushroomif you don't know what it is,
right, makes sense. We suggestthat you take a field guide with you.
You know, when you're going tohunt, hunt or harvest mushrooms,
it's good to bring someone with orlet someone know where you're going. If
(16:41):
you're going by yourself, people getlost in the woods, even in national
parks. They're looking for mushrooms,they get lost. So we recommend you
take a compass with you, awhistle, let somebody know where you're going,
what time you're going to be there, because if you don't show up
for a supper, then they say, hey, the mushroom guy, where
is he? You know, we'rewe've got to fish dinner. And he
had mushrooms for he might have hemight have held on a ravine. So
(17:06):
yeah, you know, bring someinsects, spray with you, long shirts,
you know, your shoes, you'reI'm sorry, your pants and your
socks. A lot of ticks outthere in the spring and in the fall
when you look for the mataki,so you want to be safe. First.
Second, to answer your question,maya, the the habitat and temperature
(17:26):
in time of year all matter.You typically find these in the spring.
Coming up here in April, May, April and June and typically thereby dead
elms. For some reason, theyare these and the batakia parasites to trees
and they get part of the myceliumand they're usually found on dead elms.
(17:48):
The difference between the ones we sawin the video and these you got to
kind of hunt for these. Thesedon't mean you go to an do elm
tree and you find a bunch ofthem. You find a whole bag full
of them, and you can't reallygo back to next year and find them
the spot, whereas the ones wesaw in the video you can go there
time every year and find more eachyear the same place. Yes, so
it's like matakia and more like farming. These these sponge mushrooms are more like
(18:14):
hunting. So that's the title ofthe show. Hunting and gathering, hunting
for the morals and gathering of themataki because they always grow into the same
spot, the same tree. Yes, that's cool, and actually it's a
good good thing to say for allkinds of outdoors sports. Urge of ventry.
Tell people where you are, keepsafe, and you know, like
(18:40):
it's good for everyone out there.But once we cannot see which one is
bad or good. I have areally hard question. Can some mushroom actually
keep you? Yes, there's anumber of mush The worst mushroom in then
I the States is called the deathcap. I don't know what the Latin
(19:03):
name is it, because that soundssafe, right. And the sad thing
is that a death cap looks likewhat they call a honey brown mushroom.
I mean they're similar. They lookslike a standard mushroom, like the umbrella,
the umbrella looking thing like you seea toad under in a picture.
But yeah, the U and Idon't typically pick honey honey mushrooms honey browns
(19:26):
because you know, I'm just notthat familiar with them as much as I
am with the other two a takiand the spongy. So unless you really
know what you're doing, or you'rewith my collegist or someone who's versed and
what what they really are, Iwouldn't I wouldn't touch them. Yeah,
you don't want to take a chanceuntil you so even touch. You don't
want to even touch like it's verydanger No, I mean it's not like
(19:49):
poison ivy where if you get onyour hand you'll get like a rash on
your skin. It just you wouldn'twant to eat them, right, You
wouldn't want to taste them or eatthem. That's where that's talking. So
now I have a question, isit like a snake bite? Like how
long does it take for this mushroomto kill you? Do you know any
of that? Or no? Imean, you know, you know,
(20:10):
well, there's a lot of historyabout the death cap, about people back
in you know, early times,fourteen hundreds or sixteen hundreds of kind of
famous people trying them out and mistakingthem for another mushroom and dying from it.
Yeah, there was some royalty inFrance. I can't remember the story,
but a lot of people would youpick a mushroom, think it's one
thing, taste it and then they'regone, you know. And so I
(20:34):
can't remember who it was. Itwas some female French royalty or blue blood
that tried went and didn't work.Our fearless producer says the death trap,
and so I think this was inreference to the death Trap. Sounds like
a rock band, he says,death Cap. I'm sorry, death cat.
It's called the death car, deathwrap, death although that's a great
(20:56):
name for that. Sorry, yeah, but that's what he says sounds like
a great rock. Yeah, yeah, death cap, that's what we're looking
for. Hey, so all right, so which mushrooms here in the Midwestern
United States should people avoid? Imean, we know, you know this
death cap or death cap not here? Right, well, there are death
caps here, okay, you know, And I don't know what time to
(21:17):
hear those grow. It's because I, you know, I stick to what
I know, and what I knowis the spongies and the matakia like in
the video. I know a littlebit more about other chantrells and oyster mushrooms
and poisoned giant poison puff balls thatyou can eat when they're young. My
dad has those in his yard.Yeah, range, Yeah, a lot
of people. You got to eatthem when they're white and slice them up
(21:38):
like bread. Unfortunately they don't haveany taste. That's weird. They come
up. I swear to God,these these things must grow an inch an
hour. Yeah, they get reallybig because they all of a sudden,
there's take a ball in your yard. It's like, what's nothing there yesterday?
Obviously? Yeah, you got theand they're so bright white like snow
that you're like, what what isthat that we leave, you know,
the garbage blow over there and inthe woods. They're like all over the
(22:00):
place. And then if you lookat those now that we're white in the
spring, because they'll start growing soontoo. Now my t shirts should be
so white. I mean they arewhite white white. Yeah. Now they're
all the they're all kind of yuckylooking, look like an old stump this
time. Wow and oh sorry,go ahead, no, just the color
of them. And the same onethat he's talking about in the spring looks
(22:22):
like a big white oblong bean.I mean they're huge, as big as
like a watermelon usually. And nowthis time of year, they they've all
their spores have come out, andthey call him puff bulls because you hit
them, you can actually see thespores coming out of them like smoke.
But now they just they look likea rotten piece stump. You know,
they're all a dark brown. Andso the only time you can really eat
(22:45):
those is when they're white. New. You got to slice them like bread,
make sure there's no bugs in them, the slices that you get,
and then you really have to addthe taste. You have to add cinnamon
or a you're because they have ifyou ate them by themselves. There's really
no taste to them. I liketo run over them with a lot on
bar because I think that's the otherfun that's just yes, especially when they
get older, when they when thepowder comes up. Yeah right, yeah,
(23:07):
And the problem with that is you'rejust spreading more seed for more of
them. Well, and I'm highlyallergic to mold, so that's a good
covenant. And how big do somespecies of mushrooms get to be? Well,
like I said in the video,is mataki that we were looking at
earlier that we find under oak trees. Yeah, the biggest one I've ever
heard of in the area here isforty two pounds. Typically they're twenty pounds,
(23:29):
ten pounds or under. Most ofthe time they're like under five pounds.
Risky. You had a picture,yeah, and we're gonna look at
that in a little bit because,yeah, because you it went viral on
the My wife posted that on theinternet and it went, uh, you
know, it was the only timeI ever went viral, and I'm pretty
excited about that. So the localradio guy called. Yeah, it was
less than fifty minutes, but thelocal radio guy called me and he interviewed
(23:55):
me, and then it made thepaper in the regional paper instead of it's
nice being amos is somewhere other thanthe post office. Yes, yeah,
I usually take my picture down onthe post of us when I see it.
We just taught my mother helps thatwe taught Maya what that meant today,
because he's like, what are youtalking about? Now? I know
what you guys mean. Some ofmy cousins up there too, so I
(24:21):
need to check it up if Cedoubles there, because I may be in
danger here. I've been there foryears. Man, I got a permanent
little spot there. He's yeah,changing the picture, but I'm always there.
Let's see here, so I havegot here. So is it is
it true that certain mushrooms are usedonly for medicinal purposes because they don't taste
(24:44):
very good. Yes, there's alot of companies that take different kinds of
mushrooms, like the Lions made LionsLions main Chautaki coral mushrooms. There's a
lot of As my wife was sayingin the video, some of them have
vitamin B. Some are used foranxiety and arthritis. And you know I
(25:04):
spoke to you before the show ringabout the guy that was found in the
Appalachian Mountains five thousand. I thinkthey call him Uzzi or Ozzi, the
five thousand year old. Yeah,he had a mushroom hanging on his belt.
I believe it was like a chatakiand they used it for aspirin back
then. So like five thousand yearsago, you really couldn't go to Walmart
or you know, anywhere to getas you had to pick it out of
(25:26):
the woods. They didn't have,no, they didn't have well, you
know, it was in the beginning. It was you had to go find
it yourself. But he knew,you know, and they knew that which
ones to pick and and most ofwhat I've learned is handed down from my
ancestors. I learned from my grandfatherand my uncle how to pick these mushrooms,
and they found they learned from theirancestors, so it's you handed down.
(25:48):
Somebody had to taste the bad ones, though, I was just thinking,
you know, yeah everything, somebodyhad to taste the bad ones.
And I mean, who found thedeath gap? You know what I mean?
That didn't work out well. Ijust know history named it appropriately that
Yeah, sure, yeah said andhow long does it take to dehydrate mushrooms?
And also how long did you here ro drate then to cook with
(26:17):
dr Well, we we dehydrate boththis these these here, the the sponges
morales and the mataki, and youknow, it really depends on like these
are kind of thin, they're they'retypically hollow on the inside, and if
you ever find one that's solid,it's called a false false morale, which
is not you don't want to eatthose, so you want to make sure
(26:37):
if you ever find these, ifthe whole inside is hollow from here all
the way down, got to behollow on the inside. If it's ever
solid, it's called the false morale. And I don't know how poisonous that
would be. It's something you wouldn'twant to eat. But as far as
dehydrating them and hydrating them, dehydratingthem, it depends on these dehydrate fast.
(26:59):
It's a thin scar in there's nota lot of moisture typically to him.
Where the mataki, you remember,we put them in water to get
all the bugs to bring off,so they're like soaked, right, So
when we clean those, you're insome and they're a lot thicker, like
a meaty more meat to them.Those take a lot longer to dehydrate and
vice versa to rehydrates. It's longerto rehydrate a mataki and less time to
(27:23):
rehydrate. These morales interesting, youknow, I'm surprised, and we're gonna
look at a couple of comments heremister Mustang seven seven four, how you
doing and wonderful'll see him at Canucopia, I said, good evening, oh,
Camper sixty nine, which we dosee at Canucopia, and we'll probably
be eating having some dinner with him. Good evening. Sorry, I'm like,
(27:44):
I'm just surprised no one has broughtup magic mushrooms because I have friends
in Europe and they're always like,yeah, magic mushrooms, like god boy.
But you know, that's kind ofa thing where you know, I
don't know, you I find Iwould be scared to get if I weren't
into that, because I'm not,but I would be worried about getting the
(28:06):
wrong kind of mushroom and getting prettysick on it. You know, I
don't know, that's just me,but yeah, I don't know, but
I prefer them even try like I'mgoing to buy the ones. It isn't
exactly I don't know anything about.Yeah, So and this is why we
got Uncle Bill on the shop.There's a lot of research being done on
(28:29):
psychedelic mushrooms throughout this country and others. Really a lot of it's done,
you know, off off of ourcoast, and I think there's a place
done in Puerto Rico or something,not sure down there, but some there's
a lot of research being done hereand they're trying to you know, there's
soldiers that have PTSD from oh wow, and they found that some of the
mushrooms have helped them. So theresearch is slow, but it's you know,
(28:53):
because it had a bad rap backand the Nixon are yeah, with
LSD and stuff like that. Butit's coming back. And I think that
I think in our lifetime we'll see, uh, we'll see psychedelic mushroom therapy
being used. Well, sure they'redoing it with cannabis, so why not
write you know exactly so. Andactually I saw in Europe, I don't
(29:14):
remember where, but people were doingfor studies, of course, micro doses
of of mushrooms to take care aboutdepressions and uh stuff like that. Yeah,
yep, it's it's being I thinkyou're going to see it sooner than
(29:34):
later. Yeah, just you know, it's a matter of just getting it
approved or legalized, but you knowit has to be done under a supervision.
Yeah, because you know in someday, you know, they can make
them. Yeah. And it's likethe marijuana and medical grade stuff. I
mean, it's it's regulated, it'scontrolled, it's all that good stuff.
And yeah, I can see that. How good you know, anything that
(29:56):
makes uh ex soldier? I guesswhat would call a veteran more comfortable and
more happy because I mean, youknow, honestly, their service was just
immeasurable. I mean, honestly,it really is. I don't know a
better word to describe what I've seenon the YouTube channels with this. Also,
(30:18):
it changes people's lives, people whohave you know, maybe like she
said, depressed or have other issuesgoing on. It's a life changing event
for a lot of people. It'struly life changing. And I think even
if you're you know, have issueswith drugs or alcohol, PTSD, anxiety,
depression, it can help all thatand some of it. It's truly
(30:40):
life changing for them. Yeah.And I think there's a lot on YouTube
that you can look and see aboutthose I think that's fantastic. Maya this
is your turn. We're going toturn the microphone over to you. Because
this is the part of the show. I'll let you finish that sentence going,
Yeah, the part I like themmost the picture. All this talk
and stuff, it's all about thepicture, right, all right? Well,
(31:04):
have you call him up ask uncleJan if you would be so gracious
one, please let us take alook of the pictures. Oh there's the
giant. Yeah, yeah, that'sthe big one. That's thirty six pounds.
That's the picture you went viral.That's the picture that went viral.
Yeah, my wife took the pictureand a friend of mine that worked with
(31:26):
Ringo and I, Sean Sons.He he measured it with me. We
measured it in two different scales.They weighed thirty six pounds and that was
found in the mushroom on the video, the oak tree of the first video
we saw that had the green bottomthat had fallen over. That's where I
found it. Do you okay?So do you how do you measure something
like that straight across? I meanhonestly or did you do measure like a
(31:49):
circumference or well we just we don'tmeasure it, you know, with like
you know circumference or diameter. It'sthe weight. It's just weight. Okay,
wait, because that's you know,thirty six forty pounds. When this
went viral, some a family fromAnawan sent me a picture of a newspaper
clipping where two young boys found onethat weighed thirty pounds. I think they
(32:09):
saw mine, and they don't knowhow the hell they got hold of how
the heck they got hold of me, but they sent it to me.
Well, you're a rockstar in thepost office. Yeah, I went.
When I went viral, everybody wantedto know where they were. Right,
Wow, that's amazing, you knowwhat. Okay, this is a weird
question. But there's something like thatbig and that just ugly. I mean,
I think it just looks funky.Yeah. Is it stink? You
(32:31):
know, when they get older theyhave a it's I don't me it doesn't
stink because to me, it remindsme of, you know, as a
child, finding them with my uncle, my granma. So it's a nice
smell for me. But some peoplesay that they find it when they get
bigger, older like that, thatthey have a stench to them. But
it's really just its earthy ground smellbecause Nutty. I'm going with this.
(32:52):
You know, if you have footfungus, I think that probably stinks,
right, So I think this isfungus, right, is stink It should
stink, right, No, itdoesn't for me. It's you know,
it's it's a it's a reminder ofmy youth and it's a good Yeah.
It's a childhood. Yeah. Hebrings good memories. Yeah, that's goods.
(33:15):
Well, it's not mushrooms. Yeah, I have to do with well,
you know, it's a fun guy, right, He's a fun guy
on water, he's a fun guyin the land. He's a fun guy
in the watery fish and that wasa fun day to catch that fun fish.
I'm actually having that mounted right now. We taught Colleen cle and Johnny
(33:35):
cool as the buzz bass was theresome buzz bass involved with buzz lures used
to catch that's a large mouth bass. And by the way that bass was
set free. I did not harvesthim, let him go, And we're
getting a reproduction made of him becauseit was like the biggest bass I ever
caught. Wow, that was abad as biss I love that. Where
(33:58):
was it? Where did you catchthat bad aspect? Bad lake? Thunderbird
Central allnois you weighed six pounds twoounces. That's a beautiful area up there.
Likes you. And I've boated upthere with the canoe and the motor.
Remember that's where all the rich peoplelive up there. No, they're
that rich people, mostly retired,mostly retired people. And now I really
did Oh yeah, right right,that's that's beautiful though. That's beautiful fish.
(34:22):
Thanks jov thank you. Oh area, that's Central Wisconsin, chipwall Flowadge.
I'm a kind of a musky guy. That's the Oh you told me
about the muskies right next to theboat, and you can like you.
Yeah, they're not afraid of aboat. It's crazyly they chase the lure
right next to that one I caughtfurther behind the boat. But how do
they taste? We don't need them. You don't need them. You just
(34:44):
let them go. What you're doingis you're trying to catch the trophy.
There's some people that eat them.I've had them before. They're okay,
if you're hungry enough, you'd eatthem. Yes, if he was hungry
enough, you'd eat my hat.But yeah, we most of most muskies
are released. It's a great catchingrelease program that's in the Midwest and country
wide. Now nationwide, they mostlyrelease them and so another guy can catch
(35:06):
it, right, another fun guy. That's really kind of an ugly fish,
if you really. People call themthe fresh water Barracouta because they look
like they got a lot of teeth. Yeah, true, they do look
kind of nasty, dangerous. Yeah, they got some nasty teeth in the
front. Interesting, now see,And this is this is how this is
how you look. This is howI reconnize. If you came in a
(35:28):
suit somewhere, I don't think Iwould never recognize you without your hat or
suit. Her. Well, that'skind of how we dressed at work.
You can see the conservation we're releasingfish into the lake there at Thunderbird.
That's I think those are crappie orbass. I'm not sure which, but
there's a truck and I'm just showingthe The people that at like Thunderbird have
made the paper that they were puttingfish into the lake, just taking their
(35:51):
money and going to lunch. That'svery cool. Yeah, it is very
cool. Here we go. Yeah, there's pictures of my lovely wife.
Yeah. Yeah, you see downin the top picture is our two dogs,
and her and I had a picnictable, and covering the picnic table
are all matakis. It literally coversthat picnic tables eight foot long and probably
(36:15):
three feet wide, and they're justcovered. We had food for everybody.
We gave it to the taverns,to our neighbors, to the friends,
relatives. And you can see lowerright, same thing, a lot of
mushrooms. There are some honey brownsthere in the front of that one though,
which resemble that death cap. Now, her father in law, my
(36:36):
father in law, her dad waswith us and when we picked those,
so he got those honey mushrooms.And then the left lower left is my
lovely wife with two huge sponges andmorels. Yeah. You know those look
like ice cream cones, aren't there, right? Yeah, And they turn
yellow like that in the when they'rein their prime in the season in April,
(36:57):
but early on they're called they're morethey're more yellow look I'm sorry,
more yellow looking. Yeah, Ithink they're called they call them the same
mushroom. They just grow bigger andmore dark gold like that. Later.
Yeah, it was too bad thatyour lovely wife couldn't make it here for
this episode. She was she hadshe had work today. Very very very
cool that you guys do this together. I think that's awesome. We do
(37:20):
this and we we she's a wildlifephotographer. We've taken pictures. She's been
published in the Department of Natural Resourcesfor Illinois and cover a couple of covers
of books with Charis Charis Chemical notCharaous Chemical Kars Courtyard. Yeah, she's
taken some wildlife pictures for that.We have some hung in the clubhouse and
(37:42):
we also look for aunt low shed. So yeah, we do a lot
of outdoor activities together. We enjoyit. Very nice lady to him,
add she's the real deal. Yea, she has she can't see real Well,
they're both rock stars, and bythese guys, they're seriously a power
couple. Rockstar. They both probablythey have capes at home. I'm sure
(38:04):
something. Capes have probably got lostin the woods. You haven't seen them
in a while. I love it. There we go, Oh, yeah,
that's when I went viral. That'sthe the mushroom enthusiast finds largest hen
in the woods. Yeah, that'swhat you call that. What do you
call a hen? Well, theycall them hen of the woods. There's
also people call them, you know, nationwide, they call them mataki.
(38:28):
And the word bataki is, likemy wife said earlier, Japanese word that
said means mataki means dancing mushroom.Because the Japanese was so happy when they
found when they started dancing dancing mushroom. That's what mataki means that. And
they're very popular in Japan and Chinawhere they're found in the wild. They're
also found in the Canada and UnitedStates. And they're also grown and you
(38:51):
can actually grow them yourself. There'skits where you can grow these things.
Huh with oak logs. Yeah,oh, that's cool. They're also called
the there's other nicknames. There's asheep's head, rams head. The Italians
called the karens. Hard to spellit katting You kind of roll your tongue
a little bit, you know,that's what That's why I always called them
(39:16):
growing up, because we had somany Italians in my hometown and they all
said, let's go hunt for kattings. Cut interesting. M oh, here's
the d hydene. This is cool. This is what I was telling you
about. I do it here.I don't do mushrooms, but I do
a lot of other things. Andfor canoe trips, and these things are
(39:37):
really cool. You guys, howlong does it take to dry the mushrooms
that you sponges? Let's just say, for instance, how long sponges are
takes less than time than these.What this you're looking at here is bataki
mushrooms that we you know, pickeddown to smaller pieces, and obviously when
I'm smaller, because they have youknow, they have moisture already from the
(39:59):
forest. Then you bring them home, you dip them in water, soak
them to yeah, right, sothen you bring them out of there.
So there, These matakias are reallycontain a lot of moisture, so the
time to dehydrate them is a lotlonger, like twenty four hours. My
wife does all the dehydrating. Idon't know exactly what time, how long
she knows by looking at them.Let's get her on the phone. I
think they just get crunchy like potatochips. Then you know, they're oh
(40:21):
yeah, yeah right, and thenshe puts them in a you can put
them in paper bags, I don'tknow. She puts them in jars like
canning jars with lid on them.But it's also done with paper bags like
the old lunch bags. You justput them in a paper bag and fold
it and they stay for a longtime. Interesting. Interesting, And you
can do the same with morales.But they're easier to dehydrate because the skins
(40:43):
than there, and you don't seasonthese before. You don't like salt them
or anything like that. But theseare added to soups, added to meat,
like on top of steaks, there'ssauteed. Right, you can.
You can rehydrate them and pretty muchdo anything you can with the regular You
don't do anything to me before youdehydrate them, all right, No,
No, they're just dehydrated. Butyou know some people that use milk to
(41:06):
rehydrate and we get more taste.They do lose a little bit of taste.
So if you take these after theydehydrated and rehydrate them and eat them
compared to a wild one that youjust picked that same day, it has
a lot more earthy, netty,more of a taste that you'd want it
at like a finer restaurant. Well, you mean once you once you dehydrate,
yeah, dehydrate and they lose theylose some of their I mean if
(41:29):
you put them right, and afresh one that you've just picked today compared
to when you took out of abag from last year. You can tell
the difference. And how about thebenefits it laws when you dehydrate as well.
Yeah, I believe there's loss ofsome of the some of the vitrans
nutrients that you get by dehydrating.It's like any food or vegetable. You
(41:50):
know, if you do that,you know if you don't. You know
the fresher, the my neighbor,we'd give him these matakis and he would
put them like raw and just rinsethem off and put them rawn salads.
I never knew anybody that did that, but they all lived so and they
did it a year after year.So because I told him, I said,
Jerry, you know, I've neverheard of anybody put him He goes,
oh, yeah, we've beaten himlike that all the time. So
(42:12):
all you do is mushrooms. Youwould do that, right, put them
on a salad? Yeah yeah,but he did that. And see the
thing is in my ancestral behavior andthe people I knew that ate them,
we always fried them. I didn'tknow anybody that put them dry on salads
like a chataki, but he did. He says, oh, yeah,
I used to do that when Iwas a kid, and they go,
okay. I've never heard of amataki making anyone sick. Never, But
(42:34):
I have heard of people that haveallergic reactions to sponges. These here the
moral mushrooms. My dad actually gotsick when we were frying them up one
time and we had to take himto the hospital. But he didn't have
to regurgitator and he gets well prettyquick. But yeah, this is possible
that some people have a and youknow these affect him. It's very few.
(43:00):
I've only heard of a few cases, including my father. But when
it comes to matakia, I haveheard anybody ever get sick, even from
the rawins and salad. Oh god, yeah, that's good. And uh
far as someone who wants to learnabout mos shroowners as well hunting and a
harvesting dan whatsurce would you recommend?I would recommend a mushroom field guide.
(43:27):
The National Odd Bonn Society has agood one, you know, and you
want a field guide that's small.Some people buy a mushroom book and there's
a lot of them out there andthey'll all help you. But you know,
if you buy a book from Amazon, or something that you bring it
home and it's you know, thesize of a shoe box. It's hard
to take that in the field withyou and say, hey, let's open
up the Bible like Moses, youknow, and they look at the Ten
(43:50):
Commandments, you trying to figure outwhat mushrooming is. Yeah, these handy
little field guides do just as well. And again a National Odd Bound Society
has a really good one. There'sother ones too. Most field guides,
uh, you know, written bymy cologists who know what they're looking at,
know what they're doing, and morepictures the better. But yeah,
National One Society has a good one. That's what I use. Yeah,
(44:16):
still alive it well, Bill RiskyRiesca listen. I want to thank you
for finally come on to show Greento come on the show. You can
pick up your check on the wayout. Thanks for having me, Thanks
having me. I enjoyed that.Yeah, thanks, it was It's a
pleasure having you here. Man.I knew it would be fun and I
was excited for Maya to meet youas well. Yes, thank you very
(44:38):
much for being here. It wasa great show. Well, we also
want to thank you our audience fortuning in to outdoors people, We'll see
you next week, and actually we'llsee you this weekend at Canoe Kopia Campus
sixty nine said, see you thisweekend, and I'm sure we will break
a little bread together up there,and you guys will have an opportunity to
(45:00):
finally meet the famous Miss Maya markSaki. So we'll see well, we'll
see the regular show next week,and we'll see you at Canucopia this weekend.
Kids, take care, so long
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